Half Life: Episode 3 hinted at in leaked codes and Valve haiku

“Episode 3 ships in,” teases Gabe Newell

The first sign of Gordon Freeman's return was spotted by the Team Liquid community in leaked raw code for Valve's Dota 2 beta. Among other random files, members found a folder entitled 'ep3' that contained alleged references to Episode 3 weapon types such as concrete, metal, and liquid. The files included:

/src/game/server/ep3/weapon_icegun.cpp

/src/game/server/ep3/weaponizer_concrete.cpp

/src/game/server/ep3/weaponizer_liquid.cpp

/src/game/server/ep3/weaponizer_metal.cpp

/src/game/server/ep3/weapon_flamethrower.cpp

Half Life rumors were also fed by a cryptic haiku written by Gabe Newell in response to this creative fan email:

Episode 3? Ship? It's possible Newell is making a sly reference to Aperture Science's Borealis research vessel from Half Life: Episode 2. But wait: combining the first letters of both emails spells “DIE HTE”, which could also mean “[Prepare to] Die [in] Harvester Threat Environments.”